


Fetters

by deathwailart



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Gen, Kid Fic, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-20
Updated: 2011-08-20
Packaged: 2017-10-22 21:21:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sibling may be the keeper of one's identity, the only person with the keys to one's unfettered, more fundamental self -- Marian Sandmaier</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fetters

**i.**  
Malik lives in the village of Masyaf, safe beneath the home of the Assassins that rests upon the top. He lives in a simple house with his mother and father, his father a merchant who travels and sells his wares, beautiful pots that Malik's mother makes. Her hands smell of clay, of earth, leave traces of dirt when she smoothes down his hair when he returns inside from playing with some of the other children outside. He likes the maps his father sometimes brings home with him, smelling of sweat and horses and spices when he returns, often late at night. Malik tries to wait up for him, tries to force himself to stay awake but his mother's humming and her fingers carding through his hair or rubbing his back leave him sleepy and so he misses it.

Now, his father is home. He hasn't been away for a while and there are many pots and plates and other pretty things that are carefully put away to one side for him to sell. Malik knows why his father is home so much; mother has been blessed with another child, a baby brother or sister for Malik.

It is in the dark of the night that the baby comes and Malik and his father sit outside on the bench because it is women's work and men are not permitted to be there. Malik is tired because it is late and dark, sky a black spill of ink with little bright flashes and the moon round and full and bright. When he looks at his father he can see himself reflected in worried eyes and he buries himself into the man's coat. It is cold and it is silent save for his mother's agonised cries that she cannot stifle. His father squeezes his hand.

"Mother..." Malik begins but cannot continue because this is his mother and she is strong, has not cried in his presence that he can recall and she is smiling and gentle and beautiful.  
  
"Women have a strength you will come to know when you are older," his father answers, squeezing Malik's skinny little shoulder, "have faith Malik, all will be well."

Malik does not recall falling asleep but when he wakes the sun is peeking above the mountains, bathing the world a soft orange-pink. He rubs the grit of sleep from his eyes and yawns, startling because he is indoors and his father is sitting at the foot of his little pallet, smiling.

"Come Malik, time to meet your brother," he greets and he helps Malik to dress, escorting him through to where Malik's mother lies mostly asleep, little blanketed bundle held to her breast. She is wan, deep bruises under her eyes and her hair is tangled but she smiles and pats the bed with her free hand.  
  
"This is your little brother," she says in a whisper and pushes the blanket back to reveal an ugly, red, wrinkled face that scrunches in annoyance when Malik touches one chubby cheek with a delicate, inquisitive finger. "This is Kadar."  
  
"Kadar," Malik repeats. The baby coos and he smiles in sudden delight.  
  
"You will have to look after him," his father says, serious but smiling, "you are his big brother."

Malik nods, takes the words as a solemn promise and his gesture as a vow. He will look after his baby brother.

  
ii.  
Their father is not the same after the loss of their mother. Kadar is too little to understand it all but he asks for them, cries with little grabby hands and Malik can barely hold this squirming little bundle. He knows that Kadar is hungry and he is too but it is hard to keep food on tables and no one wants to take in two little boys, one of whom is still a baby and another who is still a little too small and wiry to really be of much use.

Their mother had fallen ill after Kadar's birth, halting and slow in her movements as though in pain and shielding it. Malik had tried to help but there had only been so much he could do and their father had to leave at times to sell wares and to put food on their table but once their mother had taken to her bed, barely able to nurse the baby, he had walked about the house as a ghost, haunted eyes and sallow skin, saying little to either child. Malik had taken to wandering the village with his baby brother, talking in whispers about what he could see, taking him to pet the horses that Assassins and travellers rode in and out on. He was present at her bedside when she died, reciting verse alongside his father, saying a verse for little Kadar who had squawked angrily, kicking his legs, tiny fists wheeling in the empty air.

"I bear witness that there is no god but Allah," were the last words his mother sighed out as she passed and his father closed her eyes.

Malik is not present for the preparations for the funeral so he sits by a bench, hunched, brother on his lap by the bench right by the gates. His eyes are unseeing until a man sits beside him and Malik startles, stumbles over his words when he takes in the sash and the hood and the missing ring finger of the left hand.

"What troubles you?" The man asks and Malik has never said more than the politest of hellos to these mysterious hooded people.  
  
"My mother," he forces himself not to stutter, "she has passed."  
  
"I am sorry for the loss." Malik nods as there is not much of a reply he can make and watches as the man lets Kadar grab one of his fingers with his fist. "Father has worried for a long time that there will be no place for us; he cannot provide..." He breaks off and wills himself not to cry in front of such a man as this.  
  
"What is your name?"  
  
"Malik A-Sayf. This is my brother Kadar."

The man nods, gets to his feet and says, "safety and peace," before he departs.

That night, Malik and Kadar find a new home in stone walls in rooms packed with many young bodies, high in the fortress above the village.

  
**iii.**  
They grow strong in the Order. Malik's shoulders grow broad and he shoots up like a weed. They befriend a boy called Altaïr and there is a streak in him that rubs Malik the wrong way, makes him want to press his face into the dirt when they are paired together for sparring practice but Altaïr is so good. The master's favourite. He isn't the tallest or the biggest but he is canny like a fox and agile, able to move fast and he watches, always.

"He takes after his namesake," Malik says to Kadar one night when they're carrying books back and forth to some of the rafiq who are present, talking in the quietest of undertones. Malik is old enough that his voice is starting to deepen and he sounds like his father at times but Kadar's voice is still high and he sounds silly now when he whispers back, still a boy whereas Malik is becoming a man.  
  
"What do you mean brother?"  
  
"They way he watches. Like a bird waiting to strike its prey."  
  
"Is that not how we should be though? We are Assassins. We watch, we wait, we strike."  
  
"You have been talking to him again." It is not quite an accusation but it is close enough. Malik dislikes the ugly streak of jealousy he can feel within himself when Altaïr is mentioned but he cannot help it. Kadar is _his_ little brother. He does not want Altaïr, the master's favourite and his arrogant smug smirk to take his brother away.

Their father died a few winters ago. Kadar barely remembered him and Malik grieved in a distant manner. Kadar is all the family he has left.

"Does it anger you?" Malik steers Kadar around a bookshelf as he talks and nudges him as a warning to fall silent as the rafiq takes the books and then dismisses them. It gives Malik time to consider his answer, to think through it and it does not anger him as greatly as it bothers him.  
  
"I think you should look to a better figure to give you guidance." He dearly wishes to say, 'you should look to me, your brother' but that would sound like the petty jealousy of a child. "Rauf is skilled, if you wish to admire someone among our number, you could look to him."  
  
"But Altaïr is praised by Al Mualim himself!" There is hushed but undisguised awe in Kadar's eyes.  
  
"He is not so skilled outside of combat and weapons. It takes more than that to be an Assassin." Malik is good at religious and philosophical, his writing smooth and fluid and he can draw beautiful maps, taking great care with them. Altaïr's work is a mess, scrawls and scratches and hasty carelessness. "He must truly understand _why_ he respects the Tenets of the Creed."

He suspects, however, that Altaïr does not respect the Creed at all. He just has no proof and will not make groundless accusations. He will wait and try to steer Kadar down a different road but he has a sinking feeling that it will not be possible. Kadar has picked his idol; it will be hard to sway him.

**iv.**  
He and Altaïr are made full members of the Brotherhood on the same day alongside other boys their age. They steel themselves for the day and there are fights but there is less viciousness which almost could seem odd but there is an air of elation. They may still be called novices but they are men now, seen as such in the eyes of their teachers who clap their hands and say there is little else for them to be taught.

It is during a bout between himself and Altaïr that Altaïr doesn't move quickly enough in response to a throwing knife Malik aims in his direction. It slices clean down his mouth, through his upper and lower lip. Altaïr splits blood and laughs, tackling Malik to the ground until the bout comes to an end, dripping blood onto Malik's face and into his mouth when he laughingly tells Altaïr to let go and let him up. He spits it back at him when they're sitting off in a corner, breathing hard, sweating through the thick robes as another pair take their places. Kadar waves and they both raise a hand in return and in not so many years, it will be Kadar taking his place in the ring.

Altaïr spits more blood, wipes at his face and hisses but he's still smiling. The smile remains even as he places his finger upon the chopping block, a muted grunt when Al Mualim's blade slices through it clean and true. They are all permitted to stay up later than usual, celebrating but Malik sneaks off to see Kadar, showing him the sacrifice that signifies his faith, his belief, his place in this Brotherhood.

Kadar looks at him in awe. He allows himself to feel smug.

  
**v.**  
It happens so fast. Altaïr, arrogant fool that he is, does not listen. He breaks the Tenets but does not pay the price for it. Malik wants to tear him apart and to do it slowly so he might come close to comprehending the agony Malik feels at the loss of his baby brother and, Allah, the loss of his arm. Phantom pains rock through him, leave him shivering and sweating in his bed as doctors tend to him with healing salves, washing and bathing the blistered cauterised skin of what remains of his arm and he cries for his mother and his father and his brother until his voice cracks and he is let in a delirious haze, moaning and thrashing.

Eventually though his mind clears and it crashes down, fills him with ugly seething hate.

When he is up and about, he cannot be glad that his years of study have served him well. Yes, becoming a Dai in Jerusalem is a great honour but it is not his place, he is not the one who broke the rules their lives are governed by. He did not slay an innocent. He did not compromise the Brotherhood. He did not hide, he revealed himself, all of them.

He made Malik lose Kadar. He made Malik lose his place in life. But Master's favourite is not held to the same rules as them. It is why he's allowed to regain his place in the world, to claw his way back up the rungs of the ladder when Malik is sent away to a bureau, poring over maps, hidden in the shadows in a completely different way to aid them in their fight. He sees the looks those who clamber down into his bureau give him. Pity, fear, gratitude that they were not in his place. He greets them as he should and saves his ire and hate and bile for the one who truly deserves it.

He misses Kadar. He hopes he is with their parents. He is still wracked with pain and dreams of them, of his mother's smiling face as she wonders at how tall Kadar has grown and his father standing proud and tall, wondering at the son he was blessed with.

He wakes with the bells of Jerusalem, to the cooing of pigeons and the thunderous flapping of their wings. He washes and dresses, prepares a simple meal and lights incense. There are maps to finish and the novice will be in the city by the afternoon at the latest and there is work to be done before then, informants and other Assassins to speak with, information to be gathered before Altaïr demands things because when has he ever asked for anything when he has had it handed to him or has taken it by force all his life. So he goes out into the city, his coat sleeve pinned and there are those who treat him as they treat the lepers, moving out of his path as he walks the streets and meets those he must.

It is later, when he has eaten a small lunch that Altaïr arrives. He does not react to the footsteps on the roof, continues his work on the map, motions smooth and controlled because there is artistry in this and it must be exact, must be precise and the tiniest of mistakes mean he must start over again. The thump of Altaïr making his way down, the scuff of his feet on the floor and rage coils in the pit of Malik's stomach, makes his hand clench so hard that he must stop his progress with the map.

"Safety and peace, Malik."  
  
"Your presence here deprives me of both."

He sends Altaïr out to do his work and lashes out with one hand when he is gone. Ink floods across the desk, thick and black, staining and ruining his work, sinking into the grain of the wood. He thinks of Kadar and clenches his fist, staining it too. He will not weep, the time for tears is done but he wants to, he wants to. It won't bring Kadar back but it would give him so much satisfaction.


End file.
